Jean Fagan Yellin
Encyclopedia
Jean Fagan Yellin is an American historian
specializing in Women's History
and African-American History, and Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Pace University
. She is best known for her scholarship on escaped slave, abolitionist, and author Harriet Ann Jacobs
.
and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. She began teaching at Pace University in 1968. Her dissertation was published in 1972 as The Intricate Knot: Black Figures in American Literature. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize
in 1990 for Women and Sisters: The Anti-Slavery Feminists in American Culture and won the 2004 Frederick Douglass Prize
and the Modern Language Association's William Sanders Scarborough Prize for Harriet Jacobs: A Life.
was a fictional slave narrative
written by Lydia Maria Child, the text's purported editor. While re-reading Incidents in the 1970s as part of a project to educate herself in the use of gender as a category of analysis, Yellin became interested in the question of the text's true authorship. Over the course of a six-year effort, Yellin found and used a variety of historical documents, including from the Amy Post papers at the University of Rochester, state and local historical societies, and the Horniblow and Norcum papers at the North Carolina state archives, to establish both that Harriet Jacobs was the true author of Incidents, and that the narrative was her autobiography, not a work of fiction. At the suggestion of historian Herbert Gutman
, she contacted Harvard University Press regarding publication, and her edition of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was published in 1987 with the endorsement of Professor John Blassingame.
After the publication of Incidents, Yellin engaged in further research which revealed that Jacobs had been well known in her own time, and was very involved in the abolitionist and feminist movements and in southern Reconstruction efforts following the American Civil War
. Yellin decided that a biography of Jacobs was needed to "embed her appropriately in American cultural history," and Harriet Jacobs: A Life was published in 2004.
While working on the biography, Yellin also conceived of the idea of the Harriet Jacobs Papers Project, a collection of documents by and about Jacobs. In 2000, an advisory board for the project was established, and after funding was awarded, the project began on a full-time basis in September, 2002. Sources of funding included the Carolina State Archives, the University of North Carolina Press, Pace University, the Gladys Delmas Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities
(NEH), and the Center for the Study of the American South. The project won the endorsement of the National Historic Records Preservation Commission, and was named by the NEH as one of its "We the People" projects. The Harriet Jacobs Papers Project amassed approximately 900 documents by, to, and about Harriet Jacobs, her brother John S. Jacobs, and her daughter Louisa Matilda Jacobs, over 300 of which were published in 2008 in a two volume edition entitled The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers. The published edition of the papers is intended for an audience of students, teachers, and scholars from elementary though graduate school, as well as for the general public.
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
specializing in Women's History
Women's history
Women's history is the study of the role that women have played in history, together with the methods needed to study women. It includes the study of the history of the growth of woman's rights throughout recorded history, the examination of individual women of historical significance, and the...
and African-American History, and Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Pace University
Pace University
Pace University is an American private, co-educational, and comprehensive multi-campus university in the New York metropolitan area with campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York.-Programs:...
. She is best known for her scholarship on escaped slave, abolitionist, and author Harriet Ann Jacobs
Harriet Ann Jacobs
Harriet Ann Jacobs was an American writer, who escaped from slavery and became an abolitionist speaker and reformer...
.
Life and Career
Yellin was born to Sarah and Peter Fagan. Her children and grandchildren include Peter, Lisa, Michael, David, Amelia, Mosé, Ginevra, Benjamin, Sarah, and Blaze. She received her B.A. from Roosevelt UniversityRoosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university's curriculum is based on...
and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. She began teaching at Pace University in 1968. Her dissertation was published in 1972 as The Intricate Knot: Black Figures in American Literature. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in 1990 for Women and Sisters: The Anti-Slavery Feminists in American Culture and won the 2004 Frederick Douglass Prize
Frederick Douglass Prize
The Frederick Douglass Book Prize is awarded by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, at Yale University.It is a $25,000 award for a book on the subject of slavery.-External links:*, CSPAN, February 28, 2002...
and the Modern Language Association's William Sanders Scarborough Prize for Harriet Jacobs: A Life.
Scholarship on Harriet Jacobs
Prior to Yellin's work in the 1970s-1980s, the accepted academic opinion, voiced by such historians as John Blassingame was that Incidents in the Life of a Slave GirlIncidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a book that was published in 1861 by Harriet Jacobs, using the pen name "Linda Brent". While on one level it chronicles the experiences of Harriet Jacobs as a slave, and the various humiliations she had to endure in that unhappy state, it also deals with...
was a fictional slave narrative
Slave narrative
The slave narrative is a literary form which grew out of the written accounts of enslaved Africans in Britain and its colonies, including the later United States, Canada and Caribbean nations...
written by Lydia Maria Child, the text's purported editor. While re-reading Incidents in the 1970s as part of a project to educate herself in the use of gender as a category of analysis, Yellin became interested in the question of the text's true authorship. Over the course of a six-year effort, Yellin found and used a variety of historical documents, including from the Amy Post papers at the University of Rochester, state and local historical societies, and the Horniblow and Norcum papers at the North Carolina state archives, to establish both that Harriet Jacobs was the true author of Incidents, and that the narrative was her autobiography, not a work of fiction. At the suggestion of historian Herbert Gutman
Herbert Gutman
Herbert Gutman was an American professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he wrote on slavery and labor history.-Early life and education:...
, she contacted Harvard University Press regarding publication, and her edition of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was published in 1987 with the endorsement of Professor John Blassingame.
After the publication of Incidents, Yellin engaged in further research which revealed that Jacobs had been well known in her own time, and was very involved in the abolitionist and feminist movements and in southern Reconstruction efforts following the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Yellin decided that a biography of Jacobs was needed to "embed her appropriately in American cultural history," and Harriet Jacobs: A Life was published in 2004.
While working on the biography, Yellin also conceived of the idea of the Harriet Jacobs Papers Project, a collection of documents by and about Jacobs. In 2000, an advisory board for the project was established, and after funding was awarded, the project began on a full-time basis in September, 2002. Sources of funding included the Carolina State Archives, the University of North Carolina Press, Pace University, the Gladys Delmas Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
(NEH), and the Center for the Study of the American South. The project won the endorsement of the National Historic Records Preservation Commission, and was named by the NEH as one of its "We the People" projects. The Harriet Jacobs Papers Project amassed approximately 900 documents by, to, and about Harriet Jacobs, her brother John S. Jacobs, and her daughter Louisa Matilda Jacobs, over 300 of which were published in 2008 in a two volume edition entitled The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers. The published edition of the papers is intended for an audience of students, teachers, and scholars from elementary though graduate school, as well as for the general public.
Fellowships and Grants
- National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution fellowship
- American Association of University Women Founders Fellowship
- National Humanities Institute of Yale fellowship
- National Endowment for the HumanitiesNational Endowment for the HumanitiesThe National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
Fellowship for College Teachers (1986-1987 & 1995) - Research fellowship form the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Library Company of Philadelphia (1988)
- Scholar-in-Residency at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library, funded by the Ford Foundation (1989-90)
- Archie K. Davis Fellowship granted by the Carolina Society at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1991)
- Fellowship at the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University (1993-94)
- Ford FoundationFord FoundationThe Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
grant (2004)
Publications
- Yellin, Jean Fagan. The Intricate Knot: Black Figures in American Literature, 1776-1863. New York: New York University Press, 1972. ISBN 978-0814796504
- Yellin, Jean Fagan. “Written by Herself: Harriet Jacobs’s Slave Narrative.” American Literature 53 (Nov 1981): 479-486.
- Yellin, Jean Fagan. Women & Sisters: The Antislavery Feminists in American Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0300045154
- Yellin, Jean Fagan. “Through Her Brother’s Eyes: Incidents and “A True Tale.” In Harriet Jacobs and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: New Critical Essays, ed. Deborah M. Garfield and Rafia Zafar, 44-56. Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0521497794
- Yellin, Jean Fagan, Joseph M. Thomas, Kate Culkin, and Scott Korb, eds. The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers. 2 vols. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0807831311
External links
- "Harriet Jacobs website", Yale University
- "The Harriet Jacobs Papers" website, Pace University
- "Professor Sheds Light on Harriet Jacobs' Path to Freedom", NPR
- "Transcript: Interview: Professor Jean Fagan Yellin shares the remarkable story of Harriet Jacobs", NPR, Tavis Smiley, May 4, 2004
- "A Celebration of the Harriet Jacobs Papers", Pace Press, October 7, 2004
- "Up from slavery: Jean Fagan Yellin tells heroic story of former slave Harriet Jacobs", Harvard Gazette
- "Professor's discovery honored by University", Pace Press, November 4, 2008